Paths of Civilization

[veekie]

Well my reasoning for putting it down after the Library is that we can put it below/in/near Lower Valleyhome which won't washout anything except the Bonevalley and maybe the Highlanders if it does fail. Which sucks ass but mitigates the possible damage and thus the risk for me.



Sorta my thinking on it, but ETA raises a interesting point about PttS giving more math and bettering the Dam as a result.

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I'd argue that while advanced mathematics and geometry may be useful, dam engineering in the iron age would not involve that until we start being able to make structural materials to our specifications .

It's the difference between Early Iron Age Dam and Imperial Rome/Post Currency Dam, we don't have the tools to use these tools.
Place to the Stars' main contribution to dam construction until the next era is mostly measurement tools.

Provided we don't rushbuild the dam with Kicker and Megaproject Support too early on, it'd be fine. We have all the present techniques for generations, and the tools to use them with.

 

[BungieONI]

I'd argue that while advanced mathematics and geometry may be useful, dam engineering in the iron age would not involve that until we start being able to make structural materials to our specifications .

It's the difference between Early Iron Age Dam and Imperial Rome/Post Currency Dam, we don't have the tools to use these tools.
Place to the Stars' main contribution to dam construction until the next era is mostly measurement tools.

Provided we don't rushbuild the dam with Kicker and Megaproject Support too early on, it'd be fine. We have all the present techniques for generations, and the tools to use them with.

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Okay.

Either way I rate PttS and Dam as those Megaprojects we should build on Slow, to catch and correct any errors during construction.

 

[tenchifew]

Oh Your vote is this:

[] [Crow] Teacher
[] [Fyth] Harvest
[] (Secondary) Study Forests
[] (Secondary) Study Tailings

When it should be

[] [Crow] Teacher
[] [Fyth] Harvest
[] [Secondary] Study Forests
[] [Secondary] Study Tailings

With X's in the first set of brackets:

Here is my vote as an example.

[X] [Crow] Spider-Eyed
[X] [Fyth] Fertility
[X][Main] Great Temple
[X][Secondary] Improve Annual Festival
[X][Secondary] Enforce Justice

When we put "Secondary" we do [Secondary] instead of (Secondary). Square bracket vs parentheses.




We have already gone through two periods of climate change. The one that started the quest in the OP, and the one that cracked the Original Lowlander Civ that spawned the Free Peoples and the Dead Priests.

I kinda doubt it is going to be a thing, since it doesn't sound like AN is basing this world that heavily on Earth IRL. But it is sensible to prepare for some other climactic disaster, because we have no way of really predicting them at our tech level. Also if we introduced iron, maybe by defending ourselves against the TH, and another drought happened and maybe a disease too we could probably precipitate a Collapse of our own making. We'd probably survive hurt and bleeding.

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Yes, we are already far better prepared to address trouble from climate changes than any Civ on our development level should be.

If we add the dams and the chinampas, it should improve further.

 

[BungieONI]

Yes, we are already far better prepared to address trouble from climate changes than any Civ on our development level should be.

If we add the dams and the chinampas, it should improve further.

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See the current Drought. We hiccuped and said "Excuse me". Now the Lowlanders...

Well it actually seems mostly business as usual but we are getting refugees so I think they were hit pretty hard, especially the TH, considering Bronze Guy. I think the Pressure Cooker has started for the Lowlands and something will pop in the next 3 to 4 turns, counting mid turns. The TH are stretching out to hit the HK, while the HK are settling in for the long haul and their forting up probably involved stockpiling. So out of everyone I think that if it's gonna be anyone who overstretched themselves it'll be the TH. What with the Drought ending this last turn it didn't really get bad enough to set the cart all catywompus, so we shall see if the HK use the opportunity to unleash their conserved strength on the TH.

 

[Therealtahu]

The Great Dam would also be really fricking helpful for dealing with the droughts that can cause stability issues. We should get to it as soon as the Library and Palace are done. If we run out of time to build mega-projects, then we should work on Salterns and Aqueducts wherever possible.

EDIT: I don't know if AN is using a historical timetable for large-scale climatic issues, but we want to be really sure we're prepared for the climate shift that caused the Late Bronze Age Collapse.

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We could get some more practice with Salterns, but the ocean isn't the same as a river.

As for the Dam's benefits during droughts, we've weathered two major droughts with barely any issues due to our Econ. Our first one we just ignored. This is the one that splintered the lowlanders. There was a minor one that we also ignored.

(Edit: Actually, it turns out droughts stopped being mentioned because they weren't a special event to us.)

It seems like most of the other civilizations lose Econ, but ours was just delayed a turn. Droughts really aren't that big of a deal to us. (Edit: Honestly, the only reason we even noticed this was because of the whole clan thing.)

We definitely don't want a dam collapse though, since it could impact our population directly and affect stability.

 

[SpeckofStardust]

Over a couple hundred thousand to millions of years. And we'd also have to exponentially expand our forests to cover about 1000 times, or more, of the land area described by the Strategic map, including if the Not!Black Sea was drained and forests planted there. So maybe feasible but so far outside of our tech grasp, and super incredibly far outside of the tech grasp of a modern society that it ain't very important.

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This isn't a no. which means this is my end goal for the quest.

 

[Sivantic]

The Great Dam would also be really fricking helpful for dealing with the droughts that can cause stability issues. We should get to it as soon as the Library and Palace are done. If we run out of time to build mega-projects, then we should work on Salterns and Aqueducts wherever possible.

EDIT: I don't know if AN is using a historical timetable for large-scale climatic issues, but we want to be really sure we're prepared for the climate shift that caused the Late Bronze Age Collapse.

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You have to remember thought that part of the problem was that they burned all the things. Which meant no forests. Which meant altered weather patterns.

We are in the perfect spot to completely stop that from happening.

 

[BungieONI]

As for the Dam's benefits during droughts, we've weathered two major droughts with barely any issues due to our Econ. Our first one we just ignored. This is the one that splintered the lowlanders. There was a minor one that we also ignored.

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I don't agree that we ignored the first one. That one which endeared the fishers sounded like it nearly killed us. The other one yeah we pretty much ignored.

The funny thing with climate change though is that it always can come up and smack a civ upside the head and gut them until you get to about the medieval era and hold massive tracts of land to provide food for your population.

This isn't a no. which means this is my end goal for the quest.

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I'll support you on it cause it'd be fun as hell to see. Gonna take a loooooooooooooooooooooooooooonnggggg while though.

You have to remember thought that part of the problem was that they burned all the things. Which meant no forests. Which meant altered weather patterns.

We are in the perfect spot to completely stop that from happening.

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Which means we are basically protecting the Lowlands from a widespread civilization collapse with our continued existence. Huh.

 

[Therealtahu]

I don't agree that we ignored the first one. That one which endeared the fishers sounded like it nearly killed us. The other one yeah we pretty much ignored.

The funny thing with climate change though is that it always can come up and smack a civ upside the head and gut them until you get to about the medieval era and hold massive tracts of land to provide food for your population.

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Ok, rereading the entire update and the next, it seems like we almost could have ignored it (See AN's comment about having years of stockpile/rationing) but it did affect us a bit, and we could still give food away to visitors.

 

[BungieONI]

Ok, rereading the entire update and the next, it seems like we almost could have ignored it (See AN's comment about having years of stockpile/rationing) but it did affect us a bit, and we could still give food away to visitors.

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If it had gone on one more update those tough decisions would have shown up, and truthfully it would have been bad because our people sounded close to devolving into a self consuming riot. So Stab -2 in my mind, so I don't classify it as ignoring it but surviving it.

This may have been when our tech was not as swole in the farming, but my policy with drought and other climate shenanigans is to prepare for the time it might not be ignorable. We are bullshit but letting it go to our head is the kind of bad idea Murphy/Crow likes to take advantage of.

You are right though that the minor drought we just had was probably only a problem due to being slightly longer than the usual and the clan issue. Which means that building the Dam is a means to be more administratively secure. Next time we have to do a big law change and a drought is going on, we can ignore the drought and focus on the issues following the law change.

 

[pbluekan]

Ok, rereading the entire update and the next, it seems like we almost could have ignored it (See AN's comment about having years of stockpile/rationing) but it did affect us a bit, and we could still give food away to visitors.

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Sure it's spectacular disaster resistance, which is only a good thing. You literally can't have enough of it.

Let's look at it a different way.

Each and every agricultural and land shaping technique we develop enhances each and every one we have already developed. They are literally gold in our hands. The dam provides a huge general boost to Econ through fine regulation of water resources and surface area to place chinampas on. Essentially, not only do we have more surface area to farm on, but every other farm in the area of the dam gets just that much better due to fine control of water resources. This means more food per square mile, which means we can feed more people, and thus we can afford to house a higher population.

Sure, we could spread out, but spreading out also means protecting a larger area, building walls and watchtowers to cover it, building roads to access it, and forests to fill it. Not that I am against expansion (which isn't happening anyway, because there's nowhere to expand to) but point for point, and action for action, the dam is a superb investment.

 

[Carrnage]

with a dam we can have aqueducts everywhere maybe even to the steppes.

 

[pbluekan]

with a dam we can have aqueducts everywhere maybe even to the steppes.

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Thats... not really how that works.

They still have to flow downhill, and I'm pretty sure a lot of the steppes are at a higher elevation than even our hills.

It's also pretty pointless when you could use a much smaller aqueduct from a nearby river or lake than one that stretches 1000 miles or more. I mean, that length is rediculous. The longest ones IRL were something like 250km. Which is 155 miles.

 

[Sivantic]

Which means we are basically protecting the Lowlands from a widespread civilization collapse with our continued existence. Huh.

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I don't know if you recall the conversation, but the Lowlands was on the path to desertification. As in, they were only a few generations from destroying the land. They were using up the land too fast without any attempt to rejuvenate the soil. Yet as we see now, no such thing occured.

What happened?

The Great Drought Happened.

Several years past and the Lowlands broke into pieces. One part became the Western Confederation. We backed them and sent a trade caravan loaded with farmers. Farmers that taught them how to take care of the land. How to make it grow sustainably. It worked so well they then went on to conquer most of the Lowlands, and spread our techniques to the rest of the people.

Ever since, desertification has ceased to be a problem of the Lowlands.

Despite having very little contact with the Lowlands, we have exerted a lot of change over it through indirect means.

Thrice after, we have vastly changed the way of the Lowlands. Once by creating and introducing chariots in such a way that their benefit could not be denied. We released the Nomad Horde into the Lowlands and showed them that mobility is king.

War has been changed ever since.

The second by creating a land of refuge and never rejecting outsiders. We absorbed the dissidents and orphans who no longer wanted to be part of the fields of blood. Where civilization might have had a chance to better themselves, we stole those opportunities and left them to their ways free of consequences of their choices.

Change disappeared, no one left to give it voice.

The last was the Protection of the Blue Scrouge. We brought medicine to the Lowlands and through generosity, created a ceasefire. For the first time in over 800 years, with several civilizations having fallen and risen in the interim, peace rang through the Lowlands.

For the first time, the Lowlands realized there was more to life than war.

Even now, we still have our hand wrapped in the coils of fate. Waiting for the moment to change the Lowlands yet again. We hold the secrets of Star-Metal, the key to the next era of civilization, and the Sacred Forest, the shield against region wide environmental collapse.

 

[notgreat]

Without a Golden Age we might start needing to worry about overflowing into Martial soon. That'll be fun.
Depends on if the provinces make more stats or eat them up.

Is voting finished already?

I don't think I have voted yet.

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Nope, voting's still open.
The reasonably close choices are between [Fyth] Fertility vs. Harvest and [Secondary] Enforce Justice vs. Study Forest

Harvest is for community, hard work, and land modification. Fertility is for nature, children, and naked goddess.

Enforce Justice gives us Centralization (meaning we might not be able to take as many New Trails if we do a bunch but we also gain disaster resistance and ) but means we start a golden age as long as we don't lose any stability in the mid-turn. That means free econ expansion each turn and continuous advancement rolls. Study Forest is an action we've been wanting to take for a while and has a bunch of advancements left most likely.

 

[Guile]

Sure it's spectacular disaster resistance, which is only a good thing. You literally can't have enough of it.

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Don't historic dams have a bad habit of cracking and wiping a village or two off the map? Like, none of them can seem to avoid it for more than a few centuries?

So it's like disaster resistance that comes with built-in disaster.

 

[Sivantic]

There is a reason why I prefer the interpretation of old school Elfs rather than Tolkien Elves. We are more like the Good Gentlemen of the Hills, I believe. The Fae are known for their beauty and strange ways. For knowing more than they should, posessing impossible wealth, and crafting of miracles.

 

[Carrnage]

Thats... not really how that works.

They still have to flow downhill, and I'm pretty sure a lot of the steppes are at a higher elevation than even our hills.

It's also pretty pointless when you could use a much smaller aqueduct from a nearby river or lake than one that stretches 1000 miles or more. I mean, that length is rediculous. The longest ones IRL were something like 250km. Which is 155 miles.

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Can't you have an aqueduct fed from multiple sources?

 

[BungieONI]

There is a reason why I prefer the interpretation of old school Elfs rather than Tolkien Elves. We are more like the Good Gentlemen of the Hills, I believe. The Fae are known for their beauty and strange ways. For knowing more than they should, posessing impossible wealth, and crafting of miracles.

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And also fucking people over who disrespect Their Rules. The Rules are the Rules for a reason...~

 

[Therealtahu]

Sure it's spectacular disaster resistance, which is only a good thing. You literally can't have enough of it.

Let's look at it a different way.

Each and every agricultural and land shaping technique we develop enhances each and every one we have already developed. They are literally gold in our hands. The dam provides a huge general boost to Econ through fine regulation of water resources and surface area to place chinampas on. Essentially, not only do we have more surface area to farm on, but every other farm in the area of the dam gets just that much better due to fine control of water resources. This means more food per square mile, which means we can feed more people, and thus we can afford to house a higher population.

Sure, we could spread out, but spreading out also means protecting a larger area, building walls and watchtowers to cover it, building roads to access it, and forests to fill it. Not that I am against expansion (which isn't happening anyway, because there's nowhere to expand to) but point for point, and action for action, the dam is a superb investment.

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I'm not saying that the dam isn't great, but more along the lines of it being a lower priority since we have other important things to finish first (Library, Palace for admin tech) and the Great Dam is an engineering project that can collapse catastrophically. The reservoir will also flood things that can be studied or surveyed, so those need to be done first.

If we had created a Stone Age Dam, it probably would have collapsed by now from internal erosion. We haven't had a recorded earthquake in not!Georgia but the area has been known to have them in the real world. People have been talking about this being an Iron Age Dam, but it's really a Bronze Age Dam created with Iron tools. We don't have the same level of knowledge and experience as a true Iron Age civilization.

Speed of construction: We're definitely doing it slow ever since we learned of the downsides of rushing certain megaprojects. The Great Dam needs to be completed carefully.

(Edit: Found a relevant quote)

There's currently two locations in Valleyhome: above Upper Valleyhome and below Lower Valleyhome. The first will have the lagoon be in the perfect place to serve as a reservoir for the entire region, but if it lets go then your most densely populated and heavily cultivated region gets swept away. Below Lower Valleyhome will flood some of the places where people are living and farming and you can't as easily turn spillways into aqueducts, but the reservoir can be more easily utilized for fishing or other aquaculture systems, and if the dam breaks it empties into the badlands. There was also the possibility of building the dam at the end of the badlands, but you failed to settle the area so that opportunity was lost.

Was originally going to have the exact site be a midterm question, but now I will probably make the decision part of the initial voting just in case you super accelerate everything.

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So location. I don't know the elevation differences between our valley cities but some might Lower Valleyhome requires resettlement as the reservoir upstream fills. However, resettlement might not be a big of an issue to our people since they're used to moving, though Upper Valleyhome is probably going to be against resettling. As I've mentioned earlier, the reservoir also affects study forest and surveys.

Putting it upriver from our cities risks them in the event of a dam failure. But putting it downriver from all of them means we don't get the full advantage of water control.

Maybe there's another location that I've overlooked. I'd say put it downriver of Lower Valleyhome so we have the option of weaponizing it against the HK (probably very against Divine Stewards) or helping them in the event of a drought (Divine Stewards, possibly CA, Greater Good if we still had it).

 

[BungieONI]

I'm not saying that the dam isn't great, but more along the lines of it being a lower priority since we have other important things to finish first (Library, Palace for admin tech) and the Great Dam is an engineering project that can collapse catastrophically. The reservoir will also flood things that can be studied or surveyed, so those need to be done first.

If we had created a Stone Age Dam, it probably would have collapsed by now from internal erosion. We haven't had a recorded earthquake in not!Georgia but the area has been known to have them in the real world. People have been talking about this being an Iron Age Dam, but it's really a Bronze Age Dam created with Iron tools. We don't have the same level of knowledge and experience as a true Iron Age civilization.

Speed of construction: We're definitely doing it slow ever since we learned of the downsides of rushing certain megaprojects. The Great Dam needs to be completed carefully.

So location. I don't know the elevation differences between our valley cities but some might require resettlement as the reservoir upstream fills. However, resettlement might not be a big of an issue to our people since they're used to moving, though Upper Valleyhome is probably going to be against resettling. As I've mentioned earlier, the reservoir also affects study forest and surveys.

Putting it upriver from our cities risks them in the event of a dam failure. But putting it downriver from all of them means we don't get the full advantage of water control.

Maybe there's another location that I've overlooked. I'd say put it downriver of Lower Valleyhome so we have the option of weaponizing it against the HK (probably very against Divine Stewards) or helping them in the event of a drought (Divine Stewards, possibly CA, Greater Good if we still had it).

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The Location decided generally by the thread when we last discussed this was Lower Valleyhome, out of above Upper Valleyhome and below Bonevalley(which the HK have absorbed. Right around the area of that recent Military Clusterfuck we just had actually). A bit less perfect in positioning than in Upper Valleyhome, but astronomically safer. Resettlement has not come up when we asked AN on the various locations, so we are putting it far enough below Lower Valleyhome that the reservoir filling won't disturb the city there.

We can also more easily help the HK than hurt them, due to the way flooding the Badlands would work out if the Dam was placed in Lower Valleyhome and then popped. We'd turn it into a small lake for a time until the repairs could be completed. Personally I see helping them as being more useful than hurting them, though claiming the ability to hurt them is always a good thing to have in your back pocket when talking to a Martial heavy civ.

I agree about the doing it slow. That just makes sense and I think a lot of people in thread agree with you on that matter. Survey is a good point that hasn't been brought up before, I don't know whether we have fully Surveyed Lower Valleyhome to the extent of our ability, that's another question to the List to ask AN. *adds to List*

What is your preferred order of Megas? E: Library -> Palace -> ???

 

[Sivantic]

And also fucking people over who disrespect Their Rules. The Rules are the Rules for a reason...~

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Please, you make it sound so juvenile. It is a thing of hospitality and civility.

This is why I want our goddess to be of fertility, of nature, free and heartless. She would be the Seelie Court to Crow's Unseelie Court. Life, Generosity, and Caretaker to Crow's Death, Trickster, and Teacher.

 

[Carrnage]

Please, you make it sound so juvenile. It is a thing of hospitality and civility.

This is why I want our goddess to be of fertility, of nature, free and heartless. She would be the Seelie Court to Crow's Unseelie Court. Life, Generosity, and Caretaker to Crow's Death, Trickster, and Teacher.

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War to his Subtlety, and Intervention to his Guidance

 

[BungieONI]

Please, you make it sound so juvenile. It is a thing of hospitality and civility.

This is why I want our goddess to be of fertility, of nature, free and heartless. She would be the Seelie Court to Crow's Unseelie Court. Life, Generosity, and Caretaker to Crow's Death, Trickster, and Teacher.

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Sigh~

It's not like the Mortals can tell the difference...

I mean really they're so siiimmmple~

But nooooooo I have to save the Maiden or find the Thingy and take it from you...

Well what if the Maiden liked it with Us? And do you Mortals like it when your Things are taken?

*Angry grumbling into tankard*

War to his Subtlety, and Intervention to his Guidance

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By Her Highness someone besides us gets it...

 

[pbluekan]

What is your preferred order of Megas? E: Library -> Palace -> ???

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I know you're not asking me, but:

Library(Rush it with policy and symphony)-> Dam (Slow, use up our Econ slots and build trade goods) -> Palace(I'm torn between rushing it and doing a damn good job.) -> PttS (This is super useful for further stargazing.)

I could care less about Games and I'd like to do The Mountain just because it's cool.